


Take Me For What I Am

by RunSquidling



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Rent (2005)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Goyle in the Muggle World, PostWar, Vaguely 2000s, major character death is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 14:37:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19477951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunSquidling/pseuds/RunSquidling
Summary: Mark really thought Maureen would grow up by her thirties, but she just keeps breaking hearts. She's got another new boyfriend, and Mark, who really needs to stop being so invested in Maureen's explosive relationships, intends to warn him about what he's getting into. They usually don't listen, but he has to try.Gregory, though, might be doing just fine.





	Take Me For What I Am

“You hear Maureen’s got a new boyfriend?”

Mark put his camera down just to rub his temples. Whenever Maureen came up, he always felt a headache coming on. Only six or so months ago, Joanne had finally married someone else, and Maureen had absolutely lost her shit.

“How long?”

“I don’t know, a few months. I wasn’t supposed to tell you, but she’s bringing him tonight, and she wanted it to be a surprise.” Mimi picked up Mark’s camera and turned it towards him, grinning. “I thought that might go badly.”

“Yep, sure would have,” Mark said. He would have tried to take the camera away from Mimi, but they’d had this fight before, and he didn’t want to risk his camera’s integrity. He’d film over the segment later. “What’s he like?”

“Not her usual type. Young. Kind of a big teddy bear. He’s like… the nicest person she’s ever dated. She took him to my show-”

“To introduce you?”

Mimi rolled her eyes and nodded. “But he told me I had great extension and natural turnout. Which. I had to look that up, but that’s like… a legitimate dance compliment. I guess he loves ballet? He didn’t say a thing about my hotness, either. It would have been insulting if he hadn’t been so sincere about it.”

“Can I have my camera back, please?”

She handed it over, and hopped onto the table, kicking her legs. Her frilly skirt bounced. 

Mark hated that he still cared who Maureen was dating. He didn’t want her back, in any capacity; watching her chew through relationships was bad enough. Each one of them, though, he felt a certain responsibility, as the only ex she was still friends with, to warn them. So far, none of them had really listened, and they’d all regretted it. He assumed. They never really came back into his life after they left Maureen in a fury.

“I’m going to need more film.”

* * *

Everyone arrived at the packed karaoke club, introductions were made, and Mark did his best to pretend to be surprised when Maureen introduced the lumberjack-gone-to-seed she was currently ignoring to flirt with other people. 

Mark sat down next to him.

“She does this,” Mark said.

Gregory—who apparently “never went by Greg”, which Mark thought was a bit pretentious, but he supposed he could forgive a Brit some pretention—took a deep drink of his beer. “I’d noticed.”

“I wish I could say she means well, but…” Mark shrugged. 

Gregory glared down at Mark and clunked his beer on the table. “I think there’s a fair chance you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you, but I’ve been her friend for years. I dated her, too. It’s the same every time.”

“Not this time.” Like all of them, Gregory sounded utterly confident. 

Mark shrugged. If they wouldn’t listen to him, they wouldn’t listen. “What brought you to the states?”

“Just needed to get as far away from home as possible. Without being burned alive, so Australia was right out.” With the subject change, Gregory relaxed, leaning back and finishing his beer. 

Maureen was leaning up against a twiggy blond man at the bar, stealing sips of his martini. Tense, Mark kept one eye on him and one on Gregory, ready for one of Maureen’s explosive fights to ruin the night… again.

“The other coast is more like Britain,” Mark said.

“New York is easier to hide in.” 

Maureen noticed Gregory and Mark looking at her, and waved, saying something to the blond. 

Gregory grinned at her. 

“How do you not love her?” Gregory said, clearly smitten. “I don’t understand how anybody ever left her. I’m so fucking lucky.”

Mark’s chest tightened. He wished so badly that he could stop caring, but watching these people do the same thing as he’d done, as Joanne had done, over and over again, was agonizing. 

He really should just stop hanging out with Maureen.

“She’s going to cheat on you.”

Gregory barked a laugh, loud enough that other patrons turned their heads to look at them.

“No, she’s not,” he said.

“I think I know her better than you,” Mark said; he was getting annoyed that this man didn’t seem to get it, or believe him, at all, even though Maureen was whispering into the blond man’s ear and sliding her hand across his back right this second. 

“Whatever, mate. You’re the filmmaker, right? What sorts of things do you film?”

Mark gritted his teeth. This guy was as thick as he looked, and he might as well give up. “I’m doing a documentary on the AIDS crisis right now. I tried to do one while it was happening, but I was being too Avant-Garde, and it didn’t make an impact. I’m interviewing survivors now.” He paused. Roger hadn’t made it, in the end, and it still hurt. The side effects of the early medications had become unbearable. “I feel like the younger generation kind of washes it over as a big tragedy, but the details matter. A lot of people I loved died. I don’t want them forgotten.”

Tension appeared around Gregory’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to lose people. It’s not the same, but... you know.” 

“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Gregory considered him for a while, his gaze uncomfortably piercing. Mark felt for a moment like he’d slammed three tequilas in a row, but it went away just as suddenly. He gave his beer a suspicious look and pushed it away.

“I picked the wrong side of a war. I was a stupid kid, and I’m glad we lost, but my best friend died in front of me. And my mom. It’s going to haunt me forever. I miss them so much. I can’t even visit their graves—if I go back into the country, I’ll go straight to prison. So.” He lifted his beer in a cheers gesture, then looked disappointed to realize it was empty. 

“I’m sorry.” Mark wondered which war it was, and thought it was odd that a Brit had gone fighting a war somewhere in what sounded like an illegal capacity, but it seemed rude to ask. 

And then Maureen slid into the booth, sliding a fresh beer into the empty one’s place and leaning up against Gregory, kissing him fiercely. Gregory’s hand lifted to cup her face. His thumb brushed her cheek affectionately. 

Mark looked away. Feeling jealous after so many years was extremely inconvenient. It would be easier if it wasn’t layered with the resigned dread of what was coming.

“He’s hot,” Gregory said as they pulled apart. “Any luck? And thanks for the beer.”

“Maybe. I’m still working on it.” She winked at him. “You two getting along?”

“He’s cool,” Gregory said. “Keeps trying to warn me about you, though.”

“He does that,” Maureen said, rolling her eyes. “I’m going to go sing.”

Gregory kissed her again, and she headed to the stage to flirt with the DJ—a trick to cutting the karaoke line that worked just about half the time. It used to work almost every time, when she was still in her twenties.

Gregory caught Mark gaping at him, and smirked.

“Told you she wouldn’t cheat on me.”

Mark felt floored, and embarrassed, and a little bit like he’d been played. Gregory seemed to be enjoying Mark’s imbalance. “You two deserve each other.”

“Sorry, sorry, you were just so earnest, I couldn’t help it. No, stay there, I’ll buy you an apology beer.”

While Gregory was gone, Mark tried his best to stop fuming, but he’d honestly been trying to keep Gregory from getting his heart broken—as he’d seen a thousand times—and Gregory had been laughing at him the whole time.

Gregory came back with Mark’s beer. 

“I was just trying to help,” Mark said, petulantly accepting the beer.

“I know. Maybe hold the help until you actually know people, though. Just a suggestion.”

They sat in silence for a little bit, drinking their beers, until Maureen’s powerful voice echoed through the bar. She was singing some indie song with incomprehensible lyrics that Mark had never heard.

Mark stood up. “I’m going to go dance,” he said, intending to find Mimi and see if she knew about the fugitive-possible-war-criminal thing. She was always good for a gossip about Maureen’s current squeeze.

He found Mimi without trouble—she’d taken a little too hard to the recent body glitter craze—but when he found her, he forgot what he’d come to talk to her about. His mind kept sliding off the topic like wet ice. Something about Gregory?

“So…?” she said, eyes lighting up when she saw him, abandoning the person she’d been dancing with. 

“They actually might stand a chance,” he said. He was good at ballroom dance, but hadn’t quite gotten the hang of club dance, and he could see her laughing at him with her eyes. “Dunno if Maureen can live without the drama, though.”

“We’ll see,” Mimi said, grabbing Mark’s hands and trying, unsuccessfully, to lead him. “Think he dances?” 

Mark shrugged.

“I’m going to go find out.” Mimi dropped Mark’s hands, and shimmied up to the booth where Gregory was sitting alone. 

Maureen’s voice rang out across the club, singing something soppy now, and Gregory’s face lit up, soft and adoring. 

Mark grit his teeth, standing awkwardly by himself in the middle of the dance floor. Forget Maureen and her hunger for drama, he didn’t know if he could handle Maureen in a relationship that wasn’t constantly on the verge of ending. It went against everything he knew.

He really needed to stop hanging out with Maureen.


End file.
